The President of the United States “will not apologize”, hammered the spokesperson for Joe Biden, Karine Jean-Pierre, during the daily White House briefing, Thursday, December 9. The 80-year-old Democrat is accused by the conservative opposition of a new error in judgment, this time in the Ukrainian file. That of having made a “bad deal” by negotiating the exchange of basketball player Brittney Griner, a prisoner of Russia, against the high-flying Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout.
Many Republican leaders strongly criticized this exchange. Apart from the taunts of former President Donald Trump, who denounced on his Truth Social network a “one-way market”, “stupid” and “embarrassing”, it is the failure of the repatriation of a second American detained in Russia which is pointed out by many other elected conservatives. The fate of former soldier Paul Whelan, arrested four years ago, has not in fact been settled by this negotiation. “An American Marine is left behind in another bad deal concluded by Biden”, denounced the Republican congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis.
Karine Jean-Pierre justified the choice of the presidency. She explained that “it wasn’t a choice on which American to bring home. It was a choice between bringing an American home, or none.” After 10 months of ordeal, the sportswoman Brittney Griner arrived by plane in San Antonio this Friday morning. His arrest in February, for having in his possession cannabis-based vaporizer liquid, was pointed to as the creation of diplomatic leverage by Moscow, in the midst of the conflict in Ukraine. “The president felt he had a moral obligation. And we will not apologize for that,” the spokeswoman added.
In one article, the American television channel CNN indicates that the Russians announced, from the start of the negotiations, that “the release of two Americans detained for a Russian prisoner” was not an option. “But when US officials sought to offer other options that would secure Whelan’s release alongside Griner, they were met with significant resistance,” the outlet said.
The release of veteran Paul Whelan in question
According to the director of the Think Tank Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, Will Pomeranz, the case of the former American soldier will now be difficult to settle. Sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison, his “best chance to leave Russia was to be part of the exchange with Brittney Griner”, he judges. The case of the sportswoman triggered a strong mobilization, in particular in the world of women’s basketball.
The head of the American diplomacy Antony Blinken explained to him that Russia wanted to treat the two cases in a different way, because of the “false accusations of espionage” that Moscow weighs on Paul Whelan. In a call with the CNN channel from his penal colony in Russia, Paul Whelan said he was “strongly disappointed”. “I don’t understand why I’m still here,” he said. In a statement, her family said they were “happy” for Ms Griner but “still devastated” to know Paul Whelan in a Russian prison.
The exchange of prisoners took place at an airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In Russian security service video released by TASS, a tall figure in a red jacket walks down a tarmac, a small, smiling man with a gray mustache walks up to meet him. Men in suits who accompany them greet each other on both sides and then leave in the opposite direction. In a statement, Brittney Griner’s family said, “We would like to express our sincere gratitude to President Biden and his administration for their tireless work in bringing Brittney home.” The basketball player’s wife, Cherelle Griner, said she was “overwhelmed with emotions”.
An unbalanced exchange?
Faced with fears about the release of Viktor Bout, the presidency assured to remain “vigilant” after the release of the arms trafficker. Nicknamed the “merchant of death”, his extraordinary career served as inspiration for the film “Lord of War” with Nicolas Cage. Sentenced to 25 years in prison for having participated in the murder of American citizens, he served about half of it in the United States, before being released on Thursday.
The United States, like other democracies, sometimes agrees to exchanges of prisoners considered unbalanced, by the number of prisoners negotiated or their dangerousness, but whose governments consider that they meet strong expectations of their opinions. public. In 2011, Israel released more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for a single soldier, Gilad Shalit. As far as Brittney Griner is concerned, the strongest criticism remained mainly concentrated, at least in the first hours following the announcement, in the conservative camp.
Does it reveal public opinion? An American football player, Micah Parsons, has apologized on Twitter for a message in which he was outraged that the United States “abandoned a Marine”. Faced with an onslaught of criticism, he went back on his remarks to say he was “extremely happy” with the release of the double Olympic champion.
The American press was divided on the subject this Friday morning. “Celebrities rather than veterans”, questioned the hyper-conservative and pro-Trump channel Foxnews. “The Griner exchange was not what the United States hoped for, but what it could get”, headlined for his part. the Democratic-leaning newspaper Washington Post. “The deal was not what U.S. officials wanted. But after months of difficult private negotiations and angry public accusations, it was, they concluded, the best they could get.” he, referring to “an imperfect but ultimately achievable opportunity, for a US government under pressure to conclude an agreement”.